The best lessons are often taught by those who’ve lived them firsthand.
This is one of the foundational underpinnings here at EnCorps, Inc., a California-based 501(c)(3) that advocates for STEM educational equity across the United States. Rooted in our belief that traditionally under-represented students belong in STEM, EnCorps prepares STEM professionals to serve as role models who educate and inspire students lacking equitable access to high-quality science, technology, engineering, and math education (STEM).
EnCorps focuses on addressing a critical, three-dimensional problem. We are working to: improve science and math proficiency among our nation’s students; promote diversity in the STEM workforce; and alleviate glaring educator shortages in vital STEM subjects, particularly for under-resourced public schools.
The underrepresentation of Hispanic/Latinx, Black/African American, and women
professionals in STEM underscores the
importance of these efforts, to better reflect
our society and meet growing demands for
diverse perspectives and problem-solving
skills.
However, with only 26% of eighth-grade students
in the United States proficient in math—and
even lower rates among Hispanic/Latinx (14%)
and Black/African American (9%) students—there
has never been a more urgent time to tackle
these issues.
Bob Capriles, Math & Engineering Teacher
Fremont High School in Sunnyvale, CA.
EnCorps Fellow, 2011 Cohort
An Educator Takes Action: The History and Founding of EnCorps, Inc.
Inspired by her days as a public-school math teacher, former Paramount Pictures CEO Sherry Lansing launched the EnCorps’ STEM Teachers program in 2007. It was designed to address declining student achievement in STEM and the impending shortage of STEM teachers by recruiting STEM professionals to work in second-act careers in education. Sherry’s vision was borne from her personal experiences in the classroom as well as sobering state data that highlighted the critical gaps in academic performance and access to STEM educators among California’s most systematically oppressed students.
Sherry believed that, with proper training and support, STEM professionals who had the direct lived experience of working in science, technology, engineering, and math careers were in fact some of the most uniquely qualified individuals to help solve the state and national crisis of STEM educational inequity. She sought to build an organization that addressed the dual challenges of forging a new pipeline of STEM educators as well as bringing high-quality educators into under-resourced schools that had high enrollments of students experiencing poverty and fewer resources to serve them in the ways all students deserve.
The program launched with 10 Fellows in the Bay Area, and after a highly successful first two years EnCorps expanded to Los Angeles and Orange County in 2009, and then to San Diego and Sacramento in 2013 as the need for expert STEM teachers continued to increase across the state.
EnCorps re-trained expert STEM professionals as much-needed 6-12 teachers in financially disadvantaged schools—supporting their transition “from lab work to lesson planning,” in a sense. EnCorps Fellows became the bridge that connected real-world industry to classroom learning, which increased students’ STEM achievement in each of the initial partner schools and, for the very first time in their lives, inspired many students in under-resourced schools to consider pursuing a STEM career for the future.
Building Bright Minds in the Bay
The Bay Area still boasts a high concentration of tech giants, startups, and research institutions that drive exciting advancements in technology and science. Unfortunately, companies across the region have recently started to downsize. A new opportunity has emerged to re-train these smart and talented individuals to serve as teachers, meeting both their need for new career prospects while simultaneously addressing the growing demand for qualified STEM educators in California’s most historically overlooked public schools.
EnCorps is enthusiastically building upon our rich history of impact and success in the Bay Area. To date, we have recruited nearly 600 STEM professionals who have chosen to teach and tutor in the Bay Area’s highest-needs public school districts and charter schools, including in the San Jose Unified School District, Oakland Unified School District and KIPP Public Schools Northern California. Since our founding, EnCorps has impacted more than 22,000 students attending under-resourced communities in the Bay Area alone.
Fellows and tutors have recently arrived to these school campuses from prestigious Bay Area companies like Intel, NVIDIA and Facebook (now Meta) where they spent years working at the forefront of STEM innovation (on average, EnCorps’ Fellows and STEMx Tutors bring more than 15 years of STEM industry experience to their classrooms). Many of our Bay Area professionals have impressive backgrounds working in the vanguard of physics and engineering for the nation’s most groundbreaking companies.
For many students we serve in the region, these companies—which are geographically located right in students’ backyards but that are metaphorically worlds away—represent a pinnacle of success in the STEM industry. They are considered “it” places that students admire and where they one day aspire to work, often for a salary they may well be the first in their families or communities to command.
From Tech to Long-term Teaching
EnCorps’ effectiveness in these Bay Area schools, as well as other schools around California and the nation, stems from several key factors. Our supportive program design helps guide new educators every step of the way, allowing them to feel confident about their abilities as new teachers and fostering their commitment to STEM teaching for the long term. Research shows that teachers improve with experience, and EnCorps is proud to help STEM educators stay in the classroom longer than most, enhancing their impact over time.
More than 72% of teachers who complete the EnCorps Fellowship continue to persist in the teaching profession after five years, compared to just 50% of teachers nationwide who join the sector through other entry points.
Bob Capriles, Bay Area EnCorps Fellow, is just one example of a devoted teacher who not only met, but long surpassed, this five-year milestone. He joined the 2011 EnCorps Fellow cohort and currently works as a Math & Engineering Teacher at Fremont High School in Sunnyvale, California.
Bob spent 20 years working in high technology. As a child, his father moved their family to Palo Alto to work at “a little tech startup” called Hewlett Packard, as he jokingly describes today. Inspired after witnessing his father having so much fun at work, Bob’s own interest in the field of technology was sparked and he went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in computer science and electrical engineering.
After enjoying a lengthy and successful career working in tech, Bob decided he was ready to pivot to something new. He got a happenstance taste of teaching when one of his sons had to miss several weeks of school and he took it upon himself to teach his son a math unit at home, discovering a new passion in the process. He found EnCorps at exactly the right time thereafter, gaining the support and guidance he sought to navigate the process of formally earning his teaching credential. He began teaching at Fremont High School in January 2012, and by 2013 had earned his credential. He has been a cherished member of the Fremont school community ever since.
One of Bob’s favorite parts of teaching is supporting students who don’t believe in their own ability to do math. He has witnessed many of his students harbor self-doubt that is in-turn validated by a lack of support from previous teachers, schools systems and, at times, even their families. Bob knows and reminds his students as often as he can that they can succeed. This year, Bob supported a student who wasn’t likely to graduate by meeting with him for 90-minute extra-help sessions in Algebra and Geometry, three days per week. By the end of May, the student completed all the coursework necessary to graduate, exclaiming to Bob with pride, “I can’t believe I did this! I was able to finish this, and I’m going to graduate.”
Bob is not only a heart-centered educator whose dedication to his students shines through in all he does, but he is also the deserving recipient of the 2014 Texas Instruments STEM Teaching Award and the 2017 Outstanding Teacher Murphy Award from the Silicon Valley Sunnyvale Chamber of Commerce.
When asked about EnCorps’ impact on his second act career as an educator, Bob shared, “EnCorps is my trusted guide and advisor on my continuing journey as an educator. From the beginning, when EnCorps guided me through the first steps along the path to becoming a teacher—through professional development including ‘bootcamp’ and Summer Residential Institutes—to having EnCorps tutors and guest teachers in my classroom, EnCorps has been that constant in the variable world of education.”
Shaping STEM Education’s Tomorrow, Together
The demand for STEM professionals is on the rise. In 2021, nearly 10 million individuals were employed in STEM fields, and this number is projected to grow by almost 11% by 2031. To meet this rapidly escalating demand, it is crucial that we ensure as many of our nation’s students as possible receive a high-quality STEM education, providing them with vital skills like problem-solving and critical thinking.
EnCorps recognizes that we can’t accomplish our mission of creating this equitable STEM educational future for everyone alone—nor do we want to. Our work thrives on community collaboration, volunteerism, and support. To help us make STEM learning and future careers possible for tens of thousands of children experiencing STEM educational inequity in the Bay Area, we invite you to consider joining us in one or more of the following ways:
● SCHEDULE some time with EnCorps’ dedicated team members to learn about how you can explore a life-changing, second-act career as an EnCorps Fellow or fulfill your passion for volunteerism as a STEMx Tutor.
● INTRODUCE us to foundation and corporate partners who may be interested in funding our mission or engaging their current and former employees as tutors, fellows, and volunteers.
● INVITE Title I school leaders and educators you know to learn about what it takes to welcome EnCorps Fellows and STEMx Tutors to their campuses and classrooms. Forming district-wide partnerships enables us to scale and impact a greater number of children who are deserving of a high-quality STEM education, but who need programs like EnCorps in order to receive it.
● CONNECT us to other STEM-focused nonprofits in the Bay Area who can lend thought partnership and help us pinpoint exciting ways to collaborate.
● FOLLOW EnCorps on social media @EnCorpsSTEMTeachers to stay up to date about trends in STEM educational equity and program engagement opportunities at the organization.
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